Monthly M&A Insider - Mergermarket

Introduction
Despite a reasonably subdued first quarter of M&A, there have still been some deals which have
defied the trend, such as the Pfizer/Wyeth deal, worth a cool $64bn.
In North America in Q1 there were 539 deals worth a total
of $226.3bn. The highest deal for the month of March in
the region was Merck & Co’s acquisition of Schering Plough
Corporation for $43.1bn, which has taken on a similar form of
the reverse termination fee that was used in the Pfizer deal,
demonstrating the watertight measures needed to complete
a deal in the current climate.
In Europe, the first quarter of 2009 saw a total of €82.7bn
from 675 deals. Of the top 15 deals, three were government
bailouts. These included the much publicised bailout of Lloyd
banking group and the Royal Bank of Scotland. Additionally,
the Government of the Flemish region in Belgium acquired
KBC Group, for €2bn. The Energy, Mining & Utilities sector
featured heavily on the top deals table, with eight of the top
15 deals originating in the sector. Endesa’s takeover by Enel
came in with the highest value at €11.1bn.
Head of Research – Elias Latsis
Editor – Anna Henderson
Europe: Sola Akinola
Asia-Pacific: Debbie Jung, Chunshek Chan
Greater China: Maggie Cheung, Debbie Jung/Maggie Cheung
Japan: Shunsuke Okano
Australia: Cicilie Lofsgard
North America: Yasmin Salfati, Irina Arefyeva
Russia: Aksana Fitzpatrick
France: Damien Julliard, Sylvia Traganida
CEE/CIS: Nulifer Sezer, Magdalena Urbanska
Moving onto April there are certainly some positive
developments in M&A, and although this is not yet reason to
celebrate, it is encouraging that the frequency and value of
deals may be starting to pick up slightly. Sun Microsystems
is to be bought by US software services company, Oracle for
$6.7bn, whilst in the pharmaceutical sphere GlaxoSmithKline
has agreed to acquire Stiefel for $2.9bn. Whether this activity
continues is tentative, and a representative from Nomura
recently supported this view when he told the Financial
Times that, “confidence is still fragile and much will depend
on how markets behave over the coming months.”
mergermarket are pleased to offer you the April edition of
Monthly M&A Insider, a publication which provides you with
features by mergermarket journalists, and all monthly deals,
potential activity and deal drivers. We hope you continue to
find it useful.
By Anna Henderson, Remark
Benelux: Kathleen Van Aerden
UK: Virginia Christopanou, Petra Witowski
Nordic: Laya Montelibano
Germany: Sola Akinola
Italy: Giovanni Gallorini, Zaynab Dost
Iberia: Samuel Tedjasukmana, Virginia Garcia Martinez
LatAm: Jennifer Ruiz
For advertising opportunities contact:
Simon Anam
Tel: +44 (0)20 7059 6124
sa@mergermarket.com
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